balloons

We'll soar. We'll fly. Up so high. We'll soar. We'll fly. Up to the skyyyyyyyyy.

World View Enterprises would like to send people to the edge of Earth's atmosphere with balloons and their special parafoil craft. They're one step closer to that goal thanks to a recent record-setting test flight of a to-scale model of their Tycho craft.

We don't live in a world where our Internet is beamed down from stratosphere balloons, but we might be soon.

If you live in an area that's under-served by modern Internet infrastructure, you're kind of missing out. The Internet is great, but you're reading this on the Internet, so you probably know that already. Not everyone is so lucky. There are billions of people without access to an Internet connection, but Google wants to change that -- with balloons. Here's how.

Do Try This At Home

I'm no expert but Michael Abrahamson seems to be pretty damn good when it comes to balloon art. And he's always up for a challenge, in case you were wondering. Take a look at which Disney, video game, and comic book characters he's created with little rubber and some air.
Read More

Olden Lore

The Macy's Thanksgiving Parade has been a part of my life since before I can remember. I've always sort of took for granted the unusual nature of this particular American tradition but when you take a step back, you realize how truly odd it is. Since 1924, the department store has enlisted folks to hold on for dear life to giant balloons of pop-culture characters as they pull them down the streets of Manhattan to the awe of (usually) freezing crowds. Having lived in the New York area my entire life, I'm actually kind of ashamed I've never gone to see the parade in person but every year, without fail, I watch on TV. Here's some shots of the parade from yesteryear. Take a moment to consider whether our modern balloons are less, more, or equally bizarre.
(via Facebook)
Read More

On Saturday, Kent Couch and Fareed Lafta sat on lawn chairs tied to 350 helium balloons and lifted off from a parking lot in Oregon. With clear skies and light winds marking the start of their journey, drifting the 500 miles to a Guinness World Record for the longest two-man cluster balloon flight seemed a matter of time. But, the weather trolled and they had to land a mere 30 miles from where they started.

It can make party balloons fly and make your voice hilariously squeaky, but helium has some more practical applications as well. Considering its extremely low freezing point, helium can be cooled to temperatures of -270 Celsius (-454 Fahrenheit) and used to operate superconducting magnets in its liquid form, superconducting magnets used in things like MRI scanners and the Large Hadron Collider. Its widespread casual use (balloon-flying and squeak-voicing) however, is rapidly depleting the Earth's finite supply of the noble gas, and scientists are getting more than a little miffed.

Food is just food until Grant Achatz, a chef in the field of molecular gastronomy, gets ahold of it. At his Chicago restaurant Alinea, Achatz takes the idea of a light dessert to new heights with an edible balloon filled with helium. The lighter-than-air confection is delivered to diners on a string of Granny Smith apple and the balloon itself appears to be some kind of sugar confection. Diners are invited to suck the helium from the balloon and sound thoroughly weird as a result, or they can pop the balloon with the included pin. It looks pretty great, but lord only knows I couldn't afford it. See the video, after the break.
Read More

Adam Lee, balloon artist extraordinaire, nabbed a world record for largest balloon sculpture earlier this month with his gargantuan build of a balloon spider. Located at the Great Wolf Lodge Lobby in Grand Mound, Washington, the 3,000 balloon behemoth is 45 feet wide and 22 feet long, bigger than any spider I'd ever want to see made out of anything. It doesn't exactly give me the willies, but it comes close.

More pictures of Adam standing by the spider's head and hanging out in its thorax or whatever (okay, that gives me the willies) below.

Modern animators are finding some really great ways to spice up the traditional approach to animation, and this video promoting MTV Brazil is no exception. This quick little cartoon uses balloons popping sequence filmed with a camera moving along a track, appearing to move flip-book style. Best of all? Ozzy eats a bat.
(via Dude Craft)

If National Geographic wanted to get us interested in their Mythbusters-sounding new series How Hard Can It Be?, mission accomplished: As a promotional stunt, they managed to take a 16x16x18' house aloft using 300 8' helium balloons. The house reached an altitude of over 10,000 feet and flew for about an hour.
More pics and video below: